PricewaterhouseCoopers’ sustainability and climate change team director, Leo Johnson. Picture: DAVID FERGUSON (00849373)

A SUSTAINABLE development expert has urged Island businesses to reduce their carbon emissions.

While the world’s eyes have been on Copenhagen, where a summit on climate change is taking place, Leo Johnson brought the main issues of the debate to Jersey last Wednesday.

Speaking at the Chamber of Commerce’s December seminar, he warned that temperature rises could not go above 2°C or the world would experience the effects of global warming.

‘The bottom line is that we have to avoid a 2°C change in the atmosphere’s climate,’ he said. ‘If the temperature goes above 2°C the earth will get warmer, ice caps will melt and the sky will get darker.’

In order to avoid this, said Mr Johnson, developed countries had to reduce their carbon emissions by 3.5% a year or 85% by 2050. ‘We have got to strip out 30% of our carbon by 2020 and 85% by 2050,’ he said. ‘It’s a pretty radical change but it’s doable.’

Mr Johnson, who works in London as partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ sustainability and climate change team, said that Jersey businesses, particularly the finance sector, could benefit from the money being pumped into reducing carbon.